Rival rulings from a U.S. Supreme Court justice and a federal district judge have left Missouri's congressional districts in legal limbo, with the state caught between contradictory orders just as ballot deadlines hit.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday denied Missouri's emergency appeal to revive a revised Republican-backed congressional map, acting alone and without explanation. Minutes later, Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a 14-day temporary restraining order directing state officials to use that same revised map, setting up a direct collision between a state supreme court injunction and a federal court mandate.
The result: Missouri now faces dueling court orders over which set of congressional districts will govern its November general election, with candidates, voters, and election administrators stuck in the middle.
Missouri's Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway had filed the emergency appeal after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled last week that the state's revised congressional map never legally took effect. That ruling held that a voter-backed referendum petition, supported by more than 300,000 signatures, suspended the new map pending a statewide vote. The state high court left the congressional districts adopted in 2022 in place for November.
Hanaway called the Missouri Supreme Court's decision "catastrophic" and urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Her filing argued that only the justices could prevent "hundreds of thousands of voters" from being disenfranchised and ensure Missouri could hold "a timely and lawful federal congressional election."
Kavanaugh, who handles emergency petitions from Missouri's region, denied the request in a one-sentence order. He did not refer the application to the full Supreme Court. Just The News reported the denial came minutes before the statutory deadline to lock in the state's ballot, a razor-thin margin that left Missouri officials scrambling.
Kavanaugh has drawn attention in recent terms for charting his own course on politically charged cases. He previously outlined a legislative path on birthright citizenship after the Court rejected an executive order, signaling a willingness to break from expected lines.
Attorneys opposing the emergency appeal had urged the justices to reject it, calling it "not a real emergency." Their filing argued the Court should not "reward the Secretary's scheme to outsmart Missouri voters, Missouri law, and the Missouri Supreme Court" by allowing use of a map the state's highest court concluded "is not the law and has never been the law."
Almost immediately after Kavanaugh's denial, Judge Clark, a federal district judge, issued a temporary restraining order that pointed in the opposite direction. Clark directed Missouri officials to use the revised congressional map while the federal case proceeds, ruling that switching maps between the primary and general elections posed an unacceptable risk.
Clark wrote that requiring Missouri to use different congressional maps for the primary and general elections "would wreak havoc on the fairness and orderliness of Missouri's congressional elections." He added that "widespread voter confusion would inevitably follow." His order remains in effect for 14 days.
AP News reported that the dueling orders created an immediate legal standoff, with one attorney representing referendum supporters flatly stating: "An individual federal judge cannot overrule the Missouri Supreme Court."
The collision underscores a broader tension in election law: when a state's highest court and a federal trial court issue contradictory directives, officials on the ground are left to choose which order to follow, and risk contempt from whichever court they defy.
Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe and AG Hanaway did not wait long. Both posted statements on X Tuesday evening announcing the state would comply with Clark's federal order and proceed with the revised map.
Kehoe posted on X:
"With today marking the deadline for changes to the November ballot, the Missouri First Map will be used in the general election. Voters and candidates deserve consistency, certainty, and not to have the rules changed between elections."
Hanaway echoed the governor, writing that "Missouri is prepared to follow and comply with the federal district court's order, which binds the state to using the map enacted by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Kehoe." She called the administration "grateful for Chief Judge Clark's decision to provide much-needed clarity for Missouri voters and the election process."
The Supreme Court has denied emergency requests from political figures before, but the speed with which Missouri's executive branch pivoted to a lower federal court's contrary ruling was notable. Within hours of Kavanaugh's denial, the state had effectively sidestepped the outcome it lost at the nation's highest court by latching onto Clark's TRO.
At stake is more than legal procedure. The revised congressional map, backed by President Donald Trump, was drawn to break up the Democratic-leaning Kansas City base of the 5th Congressional District, the seat held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Missouri Republicans designed the new lines to expand their congressional delegation from a 6-2 advantage to a commanding 7-1 split.
Breitbart reported that the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the map after finding that more than 300,000 voter signatures requesting a referendum on the redistricting had been improperly dismissed. The state court ruled the referendum petition prevented the revised map from taking effect unless voters approve it at the ballot box.
Missouri had already used the new 7-1 map for its primary elections. Candidates ran in districts drawn under those revised lines, voters cast ballots in those districts, and nominees were selected accordingly. Clark's ruling acknowledged this problem directly, noting that his order called into question the candidates nominated in the primary and the votes already cast.
That is the core absurdity of Missouri's situation: the state ran an entire primary under one set of districts, and a court then ruled those districts were never legally valid. Now a federal judge says switching back would cause chaos, while the state supreme court says the revised map was never the law in the first place.
The redistricting fight in Missouri fits a larger national pattern. AP News reported the effort is part of a broader Republican strategy to gain as many as 16 additional House seats across eight states. The Court has weighed in on election rules repeatedly as midterms approach, with outcomes cutting in different directions.
Attorneys representing the referendum supporters did not accept Clark's TRO quietly. They appealed his order to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, setting up yet another round of litigation with the general election bearing down.
Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, framed the fight in blunt terms after Kavanaugh's denial: "Today the law won. The Missouri constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court."
President Trump offered a sharply different assessment, calling the Missouri court decision "Horrible, ridiculous and unconstitutional."
The 8th Circuit now holds the next card. If it upholds Clark's TRO, Missouri proceeds under the revised map, at least temporarily. If it sides with the referendum supporters, the state reverts to the 2022 districts, and every candidate who won a primary under the new lines faces an election in a district that may no longer exist as drawn.
The Supreme Court's recent rulings have shown a willingness to move quickly on politically sensitive disputes, but Kavanaugh's refusal to even refer Missouri's appeal to the full bench suggests the justices may prefer to let lower courts sort this out first.
Every layer of this fight, the state supreme court injunction, the emergency appeal, Kavanaugh's denial, Clark's restraining order, the 8th Circuit appeal, adds another week of uncertainty for candidates and voters who need to know what district they live in before November.
Clark's TRO lasts 14 days. The 8th Circuit has not signaled a timeline. And the underlying question, whether 300,000 Missourians who signed a referendum petition have the right to vote on the map before it takes effect, remains unresolved.
Gov. Kehoe said voters "deserve consistency, certainty, and not to have the rules changed between elections." He is right about that much. But the state ran a primary under a map its own supreme court later said was never the law, and now two federal courts are issuing contradictory orders about what comes next.
When elected officials and courts cannot agree on which lines define a congressional district two months before an election, the people who lose are not the lawyers or the politicians. They are the voters who showed up, cast a ballot, and now have no idea whether it counted for the right race.
